


The Red Prince: a Bardic Story Saga

by Jateshi



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, garlean stories, red prince saga
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 15:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16452188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jateshi/pseuds/Jateshi
Summary: An in-universe story saga being told (occasionally) at a night of storytellers, presented in no particular order.  The Red Prince saga begins before the Second Calamity, or maybe it begins in the Third...?Loosely based on mythology, the saga is presented by a covert Garlean, spreading some legends and tales from Garlemald in the wider world of Eorzea.





	1. A Beginning

The saga of the Red Prince, and the White King, are tales - nearly legends - passed down so long that time cannot place them on the star, nor any other star. Some sound like they were told of events that barely crested the last age, some seem so distant that they cannot even be comprehended in the time that we live in, and the rise and fall of the Eras. But the stories weave and spin, like threads of gossamer, or droplets of amber, holding these pockets of time.

Far in the north the saga and exploits and legends of the Red Prince and the White King have remained a visceral remembrance. Every glimpse of legends seems to be riddled with impossibilities, or truths, and no one can tell you where, or how, or when they began. But in the deepest nights, while the skies raged with levin and ice and darkness swallowed the sun or moons, they are still told.

So many tales of them exist in life, and in death. 

This is one, and it begins, as all of their stories do, thus:

The lands were still in slumber when the war began, and when the war ended the lands were covered in bones and shattered glass, all that was left of the once-ground that had been so warped by magics and destruction that it was unrecognizable. But before the war ended, before the end of the Prince and King and their lands, the Red Prince was merely a Prince and the White King was merely a King.

When men are only themselves, before bards make their lives into legends, things are either simpler or more complicated. A story song by bards might have truth, but some stories are stripped of their truths, lest the power of a telling wake the echos of their sagas and drag phantoms to the star’s surface. And so it is with the Prince and the King, for before the bards began taking their tales and forging them anew into something to be spun like a fable the simple telling of their plight and pain would draw their fetches and shades from death.

I tell you this story the way it was before bards cleaned truth from words, because of all things, the stories that teach us the most must be as unfinished as raw steel, and as unforgiving as the heat which forges it to the final reality.

The King’s tower stretched into the sky like a spire, woven with green and black and red and gold and blue - and at the top of the spire sat the focus. The focus allowed the King to look over his lands and the lands of his enemies, and all were terrified at the might it gave the King. Even if he held it in trust, vowing never to use it, the King saw lands near and far bow to him and he knew it was not only to his wisdom. The last land to stand against him had no king, for the grave of the king in those lands was still being broken and their ways were not his own - what they had, though, was a Prince.

The Prince of these lands was almost broken with grief when the King’s emissaries came to his palace and spoke soft velvet covered words of submission, reminding the Prince that the King had abstained from sending them before in respect to his grief - the King cared, they told him, and wished him time to recover from the pain of his family’s unfortunate death from disease. But now they had come, as they had come to all other lands, and the Prince should bow to the King as wisdom told him was best.

The Prince found something inside his heart as he listened to the emissaries - it was rage that stoked a fire in his heart, and wrapped tendrils of life around his soul that he had felt had been buried alongside so much of his family. The bards would have you believe that the Prince tossed the men out and sent them packing to the King’s domain but the truth was that the Prince’s weapon acted almost before he realized what he was doing and slew them both, staining his sword red before they could draw breath to shout. Their heads were sent back, a declaration that unlike the rest, this land, and its Prince, and its people, would never bow to the threat.

In that moment, staring from his palace across the vast domains which bowed to him, the King and the Prince saw each other as if bound by fate or chains, neither unable to ever be free again from the dance that the Prince, in his haste, had begun.

Later, the bards sang that the Prince screamed to the skies and vowed to free the lands from the King who had made them kneel. Later, the bards sang that the Prince wept at the King’s murder of his loyal emissaries. Later, the bards sang so many lies that the truths of the Prince and the King were as hard to find as any sign of where they had begun. But we know the truth of their tales, do we not? For they are the very stories that gave birth to our people, and we hold the Prince and the King as both true, both honest - and both needed to reforge the star.


	2. An Ending of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Red Prince and White King saga has many endings. Sometimes the darker stories are told as a way to diminish the hope of resistance and endurance.

“There are tales, that I learned of long ago, that tell of a Red Prince and the White King, who battled long and ferociously against unalienable horrors and wars. Some sound like they were told of events that barely crested the last age, some seem so distant that they cannot even be comprehended in the time that we live in, and the rise and fall of the Eras. But the stories weave and spin, like threads of gossamer, or droplets of amber, holding these pockets of time.

Far in the north the saga and exploits and legends of the Red Prince and the White King have remained a visceral remembrance. Every glimpse of legends seems to be riddled with impossibilities, or truths, and no one can tell you where, or how, or when they began. But in the deepest nights, while the skies raged with levin and ice and darkness swallowed the sun or moons, they are still told.

So many tales of them exist in life, and in death. 

This is one, and it begins, as all of their stories do, thus-

The lands were still in slumber when the war began, and when the war ended the lands were covered in bones and shattered glass, all that was left of the once-ground that had been so warped by magics and destruction that it was unrecognizable. But before the war ended, before the end of the Prince and King and their lands, the Red Prince was merely a Prince and the White King was merely a King.

The Red Prince and the White King began their tale as a mere King who wished to unite his lands - all of the lands - in peace. And the Red Prince, pulling his broken heart from grief, the last kingdom who had not bowed to authority and rule, who pledged that his people would never submit, never tremble and cover, and never die. He channeled his grief at the deaths of all he cared for into a heat and fire that burned in his soul, allowing him to withstand the wars that came.

Unlike most of the stories of the Red Price and the White King, this one is a tale of their end, when the war had left the land barren and dry. Not every story of their even has an end but this is a night of triumphs… and this was one. Not, perhaps, for the greatest of their battles for some stories say the Red Prince and the White King still fight even now, in a land that no airship can reach, no boat can sail, locked in a struggle of blood and magic even now.

The armies were broken long before the battles began to slay across the city-states, leaving ruined husks and burned buildings in their wake. War is never kind, and never considerate, and when it sweeps across cities it leaves the dead in its wake in swathes of the helpless and the hopeful, everyone who tried to defend their lands one last time.

When the great armies clashes, the Red Prince and the White King watched. A stare across the battlefield, for by now they were old enemies, they who had fought in countless times and turns and cycles of blood and death and victory and defeat. They knew. They were aware. They had seen the visions play across the lands so often that they could hold them in their hands and see how far they would fall when they finally fell.

It was an old dance one that had wormed every drop of hope from their veins, every moment of compassion. They had been hit by assassins and rogues, their families left as gruesome signs and messages, until there was nothing. There was the world before them, the ravaged torns lands left, their armies, and each other.

The armies met each other on the last scrap of land that had not already born the brunt of their desperate fight for by this point, this many turns of blood, it was a desperate battle - there would be nothing left, now. But the prices had been too vast, too large, to descend to anything less than utter and complete victory. The dead wailed like banshees who sang for revenge, who sang for pain and despair, and the Red Prince and the White King could give nothing less than their all.

The battle was bloody, and long. This battle left the shattered glass planes in its wake, this battle left the corpses piled so high they became the foundations for the cities that eventually rose.

And in the end the White King and the Red Prince had one desperate last chance to end it all, one last chance for the Red Prince to strike the blow that would end his battle, save the lands, and save them all. The price had been high but the Red Prince would triumph and so, in the last charge, he and the White King met.

When the blade struck true, it was pain. The magics tied up in their armies had been tied to the rulers and their lands fed them the strength to continue. It allowed them acts that would trump even gods, but in the end, death shattered them. And the wash of pain, of horror, of agony as the end came was terrifying, even for the victor, because it was the end. No more, would they battle. In arms, brought low by their grief at this realization, the Red Prince and the White King stared finally, deeply, into their enemy’s face. And as the magics bled through the loser, their armies crumbling as their very life was ripped from them in a desperate attempt to bleed them back to life, the final cry and rally of rebellion ended.

Not in triumph for them for the Red Prince, who had wished only to free the lands and save them was the one who lay dying, the last loyal of his forces clawing their own eyes and skin off as they fell to his passing. And the White King threw back his head, a roar passing his lips as at last, those who had refused to bow, refused to obey, were wiped from his lands - giving him the final, ultimate victory.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told during a portion of a server-wide RP plot {The Faceless} as occurred on FFXIV's Balmung server.


	3. Once-Upon Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the Red Prince and White King saga is less about the great acts of armies and more about the smaller moments of their supposed lives.

I’ve told more than one story about the Red Prince and the White King, but that’s the thing about stories and tales that grow in the mind, isn’t it?

The saga of the Red Prince, and the White King, are tales - nearly legends - passed down so long that time cannot place them on the star, nor any other star. Some sound like they were told of events that barely crested the last age, some seem so distant that they cannot even be comprehended in the time that we live in, and the rise and fall of the Eras. But the stories weave and spin, like threads of gossamer, or droplets of amber, holding these pockets of time.

Far in the north the saga and exploits and legends of the Red Prince and the White King have remained a visceral remembrance. Every glimpse of legends seems to be riddled with impossibilities, or truths, and no one can tell you where, or how, or when they began. But in the deepest nights, while the skies raged with levin and ice and darkness swallowed the sun or moons, they are still told.

This one begins, as all their stories do, thus- The lands were still in slumber when the war began, and when the war ended the lands were covered in bones and shattered glass, all that was left of the once-ground that had been so warped by magics and destruction that it was unrecognizable.

The Red Prince is sometimes more than a Prince and let me tell you the story of the greatest achievement the Red Prince ever accomplished, when the lands were still engulfed in wars and the magics that once threatened to drown the battle seemed to be gone as if sealed away. The Red Prince threw back her head - for sometimes the Red Prince is sometimes a man and sometimes a woman.

For that matter, the White King himself is sometimes a man, and sometimes a woman. And who are we to tell the legends that shape this star that they are wrong, or that they must conform to what ranks and titlings we feel they should. But I digress…

The Red Prince threw back her head, an inhale as she cried out to the sky and the stars. 'HEAR ME,’ she called, and her voice cracked the earth and shattered the sky into a thousand sparks of meteor.“

‘HEAR ME AND FREE FROM THE LANDS THE MAGICS THAT YOU HAVE HELD!’ For the Red Prince felt the taste of bitterness on her tongue and the White King seemed abated from the battle against the rise of this new threat. And in front of the Red Prince a shimmering form drew up, wings spanning ten fulms and a voice that came from the air and the earth and the wind.”

'THIS WAR WILL TEAR THE STAR APART,’ sang the elemental that came before the Red Prince, fire in its eyes and spikes of earth rising like breath from the ground. 'WE HAVE LOCKED THE STAR TO SAVE ITSELF FROM YOUR FOOLISH WAR. THE KING AND PRINCE MUST MEET AND WE SHALL JUDGE YOUR HEARTS. TO THE HEART WE READ AND JUDGE JUST, WE WILL UNLOCK THE LIFESTREAM.’

The Red Prince sent a missive but their messenger had barely left the gates before the White King’s own met them - for the elementals had issued the ultimatum to the White King as well, and the two agreed instead to meet, knowing that the elementals would judge their cause just and pure.

The Red Prince summoned forth her strongest friend, the steadfast and true stalwart who had been at her side since time began. And the White King took his oldest friend as well, the two agreeing to meet in a place where aether once danced like levin in the sky and now stood as still as a hunt glade.”

In the glade the Red Prince looked to the White King - and this time, the White King had been her once beloved, pain tearing across both of their gazes as they looked away. To the judging elementals the pair stood silently, and in the space of a breath, or in the space of turn after turn until the end of time stretched out its hand, the pair who had approached them spoke.

“We will give power back to the one who strikes down their other here and now, but only to whoever strikes first.” And the Red Prince and the White King stared at each other - former lovers, both, who saw only heartache and pain. Neither moved even when the elementals barked, for they refused, in the end, to strike a blow.

Like a rush of air, the world opened its life back to them, the sudden warmth of a true sun basking and rekindling their blood again as aether returned. For the elementals waited to see if they were filled with bloodshed and when the Red Prince and White King refused to attack, knew that the conflict would eventually find an ending that would save the star.

There are thousands of ways that the tales have ended in time, but this one is merely… a moment and interlude, and rekindled love. Another time, I will tell a different tale of how the Red Prince and the White King’s war ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told during another FFXIV Balmung storyteller event, this marked a rather amusing return to a lighter saga chapter of the Red Prince and White King.

**Author's Note:**

> Although the other segments are presented in no particular order, this was the first 'told' story of the Saga, and many of the tellings have variations of this opening segments, like any bardic saga does.


End file.
